The Devil to Pay
by King in Yellow
Summary: What lengths will Kim go to in order to fool family and friends into thinking she has learned to cook a Thanksgiving dinner? And is she willing to pay full price for the deception or try and get it wholesale? NOT Best Enemies universe.


Boilerplate Disclaimer: The various characters from the Kim Possible series are all owned by Disney. Any and all registered trade names property of their respective owners. Cheap shots at celebrities constitute fair usage.

Inspired by a challenge at Slashhaven.

**The Devil to Pay**

Anne Possible sounded apprehensive as she talked with her daughter, "I'm not sure that's really a good idea, Kim. You've never cooked a Thanksgiving dinner before and it really is a lot of work."

"Mom, please," her daughter laughed. "I've learned a little in the kitchen in the last year and a half. Ron and his new girlfriend are flying in from the east coast; they're coming with his parents and Hana. Wade and his folks are coming. Will Nana be up from Florida?"

"No, she'll be with Uncle Slim in Montana."

"Well, you and dad bring the tweebs and I'll have a lucky thirteen at the dinner table."

"Your apartment mate won't be there?"

"No, she's gone for the long weekend."

"Okay, dear. Let me know if I can help in any--"

"No, Mom, I'm going to do this with no help from family and friends."

On the Tuesday morning before Thanksgiving college sophomore Kim Possible checked a cookbook out from the library. On Tuesday afternoon she took her long list of necessary ingredients to the crowded grocery store near the Upperton campus. After fighting the crowds she made it back to her apartment on Tuesday night and stared in horror at the bags, wondering what had possessed her to volunteer to cook Thanksgiving dinner.

The blinking light on the answering machine told her someone had tried to call her.

"Hey, KP, you sure you know what you are doing? I'll be glad to come over and help if you--"

Kim hit the delete before the message could finish, then regretted her haste, Ron was simply trying to help. She called the Stoppables, and a woman whose voice she didn't recognize answered the phone. "Hello, is Ron there?"

"Yes, may I ask who's calling?"

"Kim."

"You okay?" were the first words out of Ron's mouth.

"Yes!" she resented being treated like a child in the kitchen.

"Are you sure? 'Cause Jen will let me come over tomorrow and watch your back."

"I'm fine, Ron. See you Thursday."

She felt even worse after hanging up. He was probably the only person who could have… _"No, there has to be someone else I can ask for help,"_ Kim thought, _"without breaking my word to not ask family or friends."_

A half hour later she was only half way through the home chefs and catering services in the Yellow Pages, but realized they had all been booked months in advance.

She leaned back in the chair and stared at the ceiling for minute, then shuddered, took a deep breath and looked up a number.

"Hello?" His voice sent a chill down Kim's spine. Had she sunk this low?

"This is Kim Possible, I--"

"Kim Possible? Why are you calling me?"

"I need your help."

The laugh was long and loud. A few miles away, as the chortles died down, a blue man wiped away tears generated by hard laughter. "Seriously, who is this?"

Kim gritted her teeth, "This _is_ Kim Possible and I do need your help." She imagined a huge grin on his face.

"I'll pretend you are Kim Possible for a minute, and not the ex-president of Nigeria asking for help in smuggling millions of dollars into the US, what do you want from me?"

Her voice was almost too low to hear, "I told my family I'd make Thanksgiving dinner for them."

"And?" he demanded.

"And I've got a better chance of setting my apartment on fire than cooking dinner. I know you cook."

"Yes, but there is nothing you can offer me to help you. I got my pardon after the Lorwardian invasion, I'm--"

"I know you are still plotting to take over the world!"

"Ah, but can you prove anything?" he replied smugly.

"What will you charge?" Kim pleaded, "I'm desperate."

"Are people supposed to think you cooked dinner, or you'll tell them I cooked it?"

"I, ah, want them to think I cooked it."

"Hmmm, You will work as galley slave in the kitchen while I'm cooking. And for every compliment you get on the food you will bow three times and say, 'Dr. Drakken, you are all that.' That is the cheapest I will even consider."

Kim swallowed her pride, "Deal."

Drakken and Shego arrived Wednesday afternoon to look over the kitchen and plan the menu.

"Don't think I'm part of this deal, Princess," the pale woman told her. "I'm just here to see you sweat."

"Then you can take your green rear back to--"

"Temper, temper," Drakken chided her softly. "My bodyguard is here to see you live up to your end of the bargain."

"I'll be planting bugs in the dining room," Shego grinned, "to make sure there is an accurate count on compliments."

Kim grumbled, but had no bargaining room.

"You really have no idea what you're doing, do you," Drakken complained as he looked at a fifteen pound block of ice that was supposed to be the centerpiece of the Thanksgiving table. "Shego, could you start thawing this?"

"I'm not part of the deal, remember?" the green woman grumbled.

"Please, Shego," Kim begged.

Shego just gave an evil grin. "Shego," Drakken said sharply, "it's for me; I want compliments on everything."

The pale woman grumbled, but a green glow engulfed the bird.

The blue man cleared counter space. "Flour and shortening, I'm going to make pie crusts."

"I, uh, bought pie crusts."

Drakken stared, "Did you hear that Shego? She said she wanted to make dinner, but she bought things ready made." Shego chuckled.

"Ginger and ground cloves?" Drakken demanded as he got ready to mix the pumpkin pie filling.

"I don't have any," Kim confessed. "Can you substitute any spices I have?"

He looked at the selection, "I don't think they will taste the same with oregano and basil." Shego rolled on the floor with laughter.

Drakken sat at the table and worked on a new grocery list.

"Please, it's terrible in the store!" Kim pointed out.

"You should have thought of that before you bought things like instant mashed potatoes! I thought you loved your family. Shego, will you go with her? The poor girl obviously has no idea what she wants."

By the time Drakken and Shego left pies were cooling and dough was rising.

"We'll be back at six in the morning," he warned her. "Be prepared to work."

Drakken worked her like a slave driver all morning. It actually felt pretty good. When Kim told her family and friends she had prepared the meal she felt she was being honest with them.

Fortunately the kitchen had an exit door into the back hall. While Kim worked very hard to keep Ron and the mothers from helping in the kitchen she couldn't keep them out entirely, however Shego listened carefully at the door to the dining room and hustled the two of them out whenever someone else accompanied Kim in.

Things were going very well until Drakken pulled the turkey out of the oven for pan drippings to make gravy. "Why is the bird still tented?" he whispered loudly to Kim. "I told you to untent it!"

"Untent? I didn't know what you meant. It isn't in a tent, it's in aluminum foil."

Drakken rolled his eyes in disgust, "That's the tent! There is no way to get this bird finished before dinner! It will be pale and disgusting. We need the oven for the sweet potatoes, rolls, and dressing. You need a high heat source, like a broiler to get the skin brown and crispy."

"High heat source…" Kim glanced at Shego.

"No, Princess, your deal is with Drakken, not me."

Drakken spoke up, "Please, Shego, I want the bird done perfectly."

"Sorry, Doc, not my problem. You've got to blame the bad kitchen help."

"Please, Shego," Kim begged, "Anything you want, just get the turkey finished right."

"Anything?" Shego smirked.

"Anything," Kim promised.

As a surgeon Kim's mother was given the job of carving the bird.

Everything was delicious. Many of the compliments were deserved strictly for the quality of the cooking. But since it was Kim's first attempt at cooking Thanksgiving dinner it made the accomplishment all the more praiseworthy.

Shego and Drakken sat in the back hallway, wearing headsets and laughing wildly as the compliments piled up.

Kim allowed the mothers to help her clean up following the meal.

"Are you sure you won't come home with us," Kim's dad asked as the family left.

"Thanks, Dad, but I've really got some booking to do with the end of the semester getting close."

"You don't come home nearly enough, Kimmie-cub," he told her as he gave her a hug.

"Sorry dad, I'll try and do better."

Her guests gone, Kim opened the exit door in the kitchen, "I counted forty-seven compliments," she told Drakken.

"Shame on you," he tssked, "for undercounting. I got fifty-nine."

"My count was fifty-eight," Shego reported. "I've got the tape."

Kim grimaced, "I'll take the fifty-eight. Is that okay, or do we all have to listen to the tape?"

"Fifty-eight is fine," Drakken conceded. "Times three is one hundred and eighty-seven."

"One hundred seventy-four," Shego corrected him, "no wonder your plans always blow up in our face."

"Fine, Ms. Smarty-pants," Drakken grumbled, "but I want the first installment of my fee before I go back to the lab, the first thirty bows and acknowledgment of my brilliance."

Shego smirked. "Does she have to watch," Kim demanded.

"You haven't paid me yet, remember?" Shego reminded Kim. She chuckled along with Drakken as Kim paid homage to the cook.

"Coming back to the Lair with me?" Drakken asked Shego on his way out the door.

"Nah. Not sure when I'll see you again. Big shopping weekend."

"You're spending way too much time away from the Lair," he told her as he left.

Shego gave Kim a long and lascivious look as the lock clicked.

"Uh, what do you want?" Kim asked nervously.

Shego leered evilly, "I seem to recall you agreeing to _anything_, if I saved your little dinner party."

Kim swallowed hard, "Well, yes, I said anything… But I didn't really… I mean you wouldn't… Not for…"

Shego backed Kim up against the wall and slowly rubbed a hand up Kim, "What's your favorite part of the bird, thigh or breast?"

Kim blushed, "Shego, what are you doing?"

Shego smirked, "Are you as clueless about this as you are at cooking? I think it's pretty obvious what I'm doing."

Kim panicked slightly, "I thought we were talking about what I owed you for helping me."

"We certainly are," Shego grinned. "And what I have in mind definitely involves stuffing."

"We didn't have stuffing, we had dressing," Kim pointed out.

"Well, I'm thinking of stuffing," Shego told her. "Think of it as un-dressing."

Kim gasped as Shego's hand darted out - seizing the open collar of the redhead's shirt and ripping down, popping buttons and tearing open the shirt.

Hours later Shego lay in Kim's arms, "Do you think your Mom will ever want to meet your apartment mate?"

Kim nuzzled the green woman's neck, "I think she was just happy to see two brands of feminine hygiene products in the bathroom. She knows she doesn't have to worry about me getting pregnant."

"And your Dad has never noticed the apartment only has one bedroom?"

"Maybe he's in denial," Kim yawned, "he can't be as thick as Drakken."

--The End--


End file.
